Eating Well On $1 A Day: Day 22 – Disaster!

I knew that today was going to be a tough day even before it began. I had finished off all my fruit and pasta and was running low on a lot of other things. I figured that for the first time, I would actually be eating like people imagined I would be eating when there is only $1 a day to spend on food. Although I knew that I had plenty to keep my stomach full, it was going to be pretty basic. I kept telling myself if I could simply get through the day, I would be well set up for the remainder of the challenge…

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This is part of a month long challenge to eat well while spending an average of only $1 a day on food. You can find the beginning and the rules of this challenge here

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Breakfast

With no fruit and having determined that flavoring instant oatmeal with CapriSun or peanut butter was not the way to go, I thought about skipping it all together. I should have kept with my first thoughts, but then somehow I convinced myself that if I had the oatmeal, I would feel less hungry in the afternoon and less likely to snack. I don't know why I think that the taste is going to change, because every time I eat oatmeal plain, I tell myself I'll never do it again (and then end up doing it again a few days later). Hopefully I have learned my lesson now.

I also had a bowl of Corn Flakes (but no topping of fruit that made them pretty bland) and an egg on a slick of toasted whole wheat bread. Used the last of the salt from the tortilla chip bag on the egg, so no more salt unless I can come up with a creative way to get more:

Lunch

Lunch was basically throwing together whatever I happened to still have on hand. I had peanut better on a slice of whole wheat toast (I didn't make a full sandwich because it left me with only 2 slices left and I wasn't sure when I could get bread again), cut up some carrots to dip into one of the cream cheese minis and 4 Fig Newtons. I also had another bowl of Corn Flakes:

Dinner

I thought I was doing pretty well for feeling like my food supply was pretty sparse, and decided that I would boil up the last of my black beans and long grain rice. I had been soaking the black beans, so they were ready to go – I put them on the stove, set the timer and was starting to get the rice ready when I got distracted and ended up in the back room where my computer is. I ended up looking at something on it, and that something turned into something else and it kept going until I smelled something burning. When I rushed to the kitchen, the timer was off (I had not heard it) and there was no water left in the pot with the beans which were not looking too well:

I thought that I might be able to salvage some of the beans if I picked the burnt ones out and added some sour cream and salsa. The problem is that I am down to my last few spoonfuls of salsa and didn't want to waste it as I consider it pretty precious stuff at the moment. I decided to mix in some sour cream and see whether it would be edible. It was a good choice to try that first because there was still a strong burnt flavor to the beans:

If I had been starving, I could have eaten them, but since I wasn't, it wasn't worth it to eat them just to fill my stomach — they all went down the drain.

Since I had failed to put the rice on, I was at square one and just decided to throw together whatever was easy. That consisted of another bowl of Corn Flakes (I am glad I decided to keep another box because I will need it for the last week), carrot sticks with cream cheese and the last of my Fig Newtons (basically lunch all over again).

I now know that when I am cooking, i need to concentrate on that and not get side tracked. Although I didn't go to bed hungry, I think today was the least favorite of all the days I have had when it comes to what I had to eat. I really like to have at least a couple of fruits in my diet everyday and that is something I plan to address tomorrow even if it costs me more of my meager resources than I want it to. Chalk today up to experience…

This is the current list of what I have purchased:

Money Spent $16.57Money left to spend: 14.43 ($2 must be spent at CVS)Retail Value of everything bought: $500.63

I barely knew what a skillet was when I started 😉 Unfortunately, due to my travel schedule and rarely being in one place, I do not although I’m sure many of the places I stay do if I knew what I was looking for…

I just remembered this trick that is supposed to help with burned beans: Fill the pan with water to cover the beans. Take two raw potatoes, quarter them and put them in the pot with the beans. Leave them in for about 10-15 minutes then throw them away. Supposedly, they will absorb most of the bad taste. I haven’t tried this in eons so I hope I’m remembering correctly and it works for you.

Be careful of not soaking beans and then cooking them in the crock pot. I read somewhere that beans can have a “poisonous” element to them if they are not soaked. Then they have to be cooked at a high temperature to make them safe. The crock pots don’t get them to the high temperature. (I have cooked them in a crock pot before I read this, though. I don’t think I will again, just to be sure they are okay.)